Andy Stallings

Paradise

Is it ever really free. The boy,
a toddler, was absent when
his mother woke, was nowhere
in the house at 7:00 a.m.
on a Saturday, so she
woke his father and told him,
they saw the door was
slightly ajar and panicked,
searched first the front yard,
then the back, this was urban
Berkeley, but just before they
called the police they paused
for a moment at the bottom
of the driveway and there he
came, walking calmly down
the street, having dressed
himself and walked four
blocks to the nearest toy
store, intent on buying a gift
for a birthday party he’d
attend that afternoon, though
he had no money and the toy
store, of course, was closed.
He couldn’t wait up for her,
though he tried, and fell
deeply asleep before she
arrived. Someone shakes a
glass downstairs, loose
ice cubes. With such
thin curtains and southern
exposure, the kids wouldn’t
sleep until after dark all that
summer, and woke again
at the first moment of dawn.
My own experience was,
however, limited to what I
knew of what I saw, leaving
out emotions, which anyone
wouldn’t.